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  “There are ways. Your father used them. I told you,” he said. And in the next breath, he responded to himself. “No, she is to be a mother.”

  “And how do you suppose she will become a mother unless...”

  Cameron couldn’t breathe. He was making no sense, but a realization dawned on her. She needed to escape. She glanced over at her chain and the length toward the keys. He was distracted. If she could only get the keys…

  She edged away from Greg.

  “You will understand that you need to become a mother to complete the family.”

  She eased closer and closer to the keys. “I know, Greg. It’s just I’m not ready to be a mother. I need…time.”

  He swung back his head and laughed…that creepy, evil laugh. Oh, my God, he was back! Closer now, she grabbed the keys. Easing back on the cot, she started fumbling through the ring, bringing her leg up underneath her to try the lock.

  Behind her, he called to her, “You don’t have to be afraid it will be me. Greg has taken care of that issue. You will see.” He laughed again. “Greg wants this. So I made it happen for him.”

  “I don’t understand, Greg. I want Greg,” she begged, trying to keep him talking…distracted.

  “You have no idea what I could do to you. I know how. I watched my father. He destroyed my mother. Greg won’t let me do it to you, but there are ways.”

  Nervously, while she constantly looked over her shoulder, she tried one key after another. She heard a click…her heart stopped for what seemed an eternity. She turned and glanced again over her shoulder. He still seemed unaware of her movements.

  He laughed again and walked toward her. “I am waiting so I can conclude my plan. Once you have the baby, then you will be content to stay without running. You give me a headache.”

  “Waiting for what?” she whispered, sickened to the point of nausea.

  His eyes blinked incessantly. He stared blankly at her, shaking his head. “I thought I knew your cycle…”

  Cameron recognized it wasn’t Greg anymore before her. It was a madman. She had to make a move or she would die in this room. He held his head as if it was pounding.

  For a brief moment, she couldn’t move she was so scared, unsure of what she was going to do. But she knew she wouldn’t get another chance. In one quick movement, she pushed him as hard as she could. Unbalanced, he fell down. She ran.

  From the corner of her eyes, she saw Greg crawl to his knees. She rushed out and slammed the door. Hurriedly, she raced toward the stairs and slammed right into a warm body coming down the stairwell. He caught her by her shoulders. She screamed.

  “Cameron.” A familiar voice spoke. “Cameron.”

  She couldn’t believe her eyes. Relief flooded her.

  “Karl, thank God,” she cried. She pushed out of his arms and reached for his hand, pulling him up the stairs. “We have to get out of here. Now, Karl. It’s Greg. He’s insane, Karl.”

  “I know,” he replied, his eyes never leaving her face.

  “Karl, please hurry. He’s mad. There is no telling what he will do to you. Please, we have to leave. Call the police.”

  He didn’t move. He stood still. Suddenly, a realization swept through Cameron…he knew. She released his hand and raced up the stairs.

  In two strides, he had her in his grip. His strong arms grabbed her waist. She screamed…shrieked. She scratched his face. He slapped her. Her screams echoed throughout, dying off within the walls of her dungeon as he dragged her back into it.

  “Goddamnit, Greg. Can’t you keep it under control?” He flung Cameron against the wall. She fell down on her cot. “Goddamnit, I’m bleeding.”

  Cameron sobbed. Her dungeon had become her world once again.

  Chapter Eighteen

  A beautiful morning dawned, a break from the wintery mix that the last few weeks had brought. Darren sat at his dining table, staring out at the brightly lit blue sky, but the beauty of the day was lost upon him.

  His eyes fixated out the window, but he saw nothing of the cloudless sky. He saw her eyes. They were filled with the hurt and pain he had inflicted on her. She haunted him.

  It wasn’t only Cameron, but Sara, who bothered him when he closed his eyes. He had etched Sara into his memory forever. He remembered her eyes, begging for more time. She had been too young to have had her life snatched from her.

  Time had denied them so much. Things she had never uttered, her eyes had told him. She had never complained. He had been helpless in easing her pain. He held her hand as her life slipped from her. He, too, had died that day. He existed, but hadn’t lived. His work, he had his work…until Cameron walked into his life.

  Defiant, careless in her efforts to help the ones she loved. Loyal to a fault. Standing for what she believed in, never wavering. She had sunk deeper and deeper into a situation she had no control over.

  He had told her to trust him. Darren couldn’t understand why she would have run from protection. She had been well aware of what the killer was capable of doing to her if he caught her. She knew he was after her. She had to have been completely aware of the danger she put herself into when she ran from her protection.

  But he knew why, and he was going to have to live with it.

  In the distance, he heard a buzz. It happened again, bringing him back to reality. He ignored it at first until it became a steady buzz. Reluctantly, he walked over to his intercom.

  * * * *

  Brophy’s finger pressed the button again. The security guard gave him a suspicious eye. He didn’t care. He knew Darren was home.

  He pressed the button again and yelled, “Hey, Darren, you up?”

  Darren didn’t answer, but the buzzer released the elevator. Brophy didn’t waste any time. The next minute, he was at Darren’s door and entered.

  Immediately, he caught sight of his brother-in-law. He stood in his boxers and T-shirt, unshaven, eyes reddened. The empty bottle of Grey Goose didn’t go unnoticed. It sat in the middle of the dining room table beside an empty glass. He went over to the bottle and picked it up.

  “Drowning your sorrows?”

  Darren walked over and grabbed the bottle from Brophy. “Nothing else to do. Took a few days off.”

  “Yeah, I heard. See you’re spending them wisely.”

  Darren took the bottle and swung it across the room, shattering it against the wall. “Any more questions?”

  “No.” Brophy shrugged. “Think you pretty much have answered any I had.”

  “Then you can see yourself out.”

  “You didn’t even ask if we have any more leads.”

  Darren grimaced. “What leads? To lead us to what? They have already pronounced her dead. Don’t you read the papers? I’ve had to deal with her family. Do you know they blame me? Guess what? So do I. Broph, I handed this psycho Cameron on a silver platter. It was me. She trusted me.”

  “Get over it,” Brophy said stoically. “Wallowing in self-pity never helped anyone. She walked out of the hospital on her own. She heard about Halliday. She wasn’t thinking right. The FBI was supposed to have had her. You thought she was safe. Now, though, I need you.”

  “I can’t do anything else. I’m off the case. Too emotionally involved.” Darren laughed. “Me, emotional? Don’t you find it ironic?”

  “What did you think would happen after the incident with Karl Neslund? You did assault the man. Good thing the boys covered for you. Darren, the guy works for one of the most powerful law firms in the city. He’s out for your blood.”

  “He can have it,” Darren responded. He walked over to his couch and fell back into the cushions. “He can have everything I have. I don’t care anymore.”

  Brophy rolled his eyes. “I’m going to make coffee. You take a shower. I want to run something by you when you’re sober.”

  * * * *

  Darren sat across from Brophy, coffee in hand. Brophy made Darren shower, but his brother-in-law had been drinking for a while from the look of things. There were news
paper articles on the case…one detailing the charred female body found in the trunk of Mobley’s car looked well read.

  “Drink up. We have a lot to discuss,” Brophy said. He poured himself a cup.

  Darren held his head in his hands. A minute later, Brophy handed him a bottle of aspirin. “Take a couple.”

  Darren tilted the bottle over and poured two in his hand. He gulped them down with his coffee. “I don’t know if the family is having a memorial service. They wouldn’t tell me.”

  Brophy studied Darren for a moment. It had been almost two weeks since she had disappeared. Finding Mobley had proved to be difficult. The trail ended. There had been no more suspicious killings. It was as if he had disappeared from the face of the earth…but his time researching Mr. Gregory Mobley hadn’t been wasted. Brophy and Dr. Schafer had come up with a hypothesis.

  Brophy had read every file Schafer had, more than once. He had interviewed what was left of Mobley’s family, the family that had washed their hands of the boy for no apparent reason, or not one they wanted to divulge.

  Mobley’s father died when he was thirteen, but he had left his entire estate to his son…which turned out to be substantial at the time. Mobley gained control of his money at twenty-one. There was no record of what had happened to the money.

  Mobley’s father had kept his son isolated from the rest of the family while alive. They called Frank Mobley eccentric. No one had any knowledge of another woman in his life after his wife died.

  Brophy theorized that Mobley’s mother had been a figment of his imagination. Schafer disagreed.

  “He received love of some sort during his development. It is what he’s desperately trying to recreate.”

  “So you believe his father kidnapped someone? When his father’s body was discovered in the wreckage, a female’s body was also found and never identified. It might be a pattern he would repeat.”

  “It is what I believe.”

  Brophy shook his head. “It would have been quite difficult in this day and age to hide a person for years undetected in society.”

  “Yet, it happens. Look at documented cases all across the world. Marc Dutroux, Josef Frizl, and don’t forget Ariel Castro’s case here in Ohio.”

  Schafer’s point was well taken. Brophy dug deeper into Mobley’s past. He had grown up on an isolated farm in Upstate New York, outside of Rochester. Nothing was left of the farm. It had long since been destroyed. No longer isolated, a luxury home development now sat on the land.

  Brophy had never put a lot of faith in profilers in helping to track down a criminal. He had never disagreed that profilers could tell you the personality traits of the killer. He doubted the value of the knowledge. He believed to be given precise enough information to help break a case took hands-on detective work…until now.

  To have a chance of finding Mobley, he had to think like the madman.

  “If he has gone to all this trouble trying to create this fantasy, he would have the forethought of where he would reenact the scenario. He did with the Williamson case. He found a deserted homestead deep in the heart of Virginia,” Schafer stated.

  Brophy didn’t disagree, not after reviewing the Williamson case file. It seemed that Sandra Williamson had befriended Mobley at VTC Technology. This was only confirmed through emails Mobley had sent Dr. Schafer, who had printed them out. There was no record of Mobley or his alter ego working at VTC Technology.

  Three young men died, including Sandra’s brother-in-law and husband. A young mother, Sandra worked as a receptionist at the computer company. She disappeared with her seven-year-old son shortly after her husband’s murder. Her body, along with her son’s, was discovered two weeks later in the burnt-out remains of the old homestead.

  “I believe that he tried to create this fantasy with this woman and young child. When his fantasy crumbled, he lashed out. One of his personas killed her, because she didn’t go along with his fantasy in the manner he wanted.”

  “So, Doc, what you’re telling me is that you believe Cameron will live as long as the fantasy is maintained.”

  Schafer grimaced. “I’m telling you I believe there is time to find her. I don’t believe this fantasy he has created can be maintained. He is a highly volatile personality. Unstable. Fantasy never compares to reality. It is not a question if it will collapse, but when.”

  Brophy stared over at Darren. He needed Darren’s help. He was working on this on his own. He had other cases at work that demanded his attention. But this…his instincts screamed she was alive. He couldn’t ignore it. He was convinced he could find her, but time was of the essence. He was looking for a needle in the haystack.

  He didn’t have much to go on, except a landscape painting of Mobley’s he believed was Mobley’s old homestead. Dr. Schafer’s dire warning resonated in him.

  “I believe he would have found a place, close to what was familiar to him. He started planning this years ago. It has to be around here, close enough for him to visit and prepare. It’s here. I know it. You just need to find it before it’s too late.”

  Brophy wondered for a moment if Darren was in any shape to help him.

  “Drink your coffee, Darren. I need your help.”

  “Ok, I give. Tell me. What do you want me to do?”

  “I need you to compose yourself. I need the old Darren.”

  “Don’t know if he even exists anymore.”

  “Look, Darren, I’m going to be blunt. I need your help. There is a chance that Cameron’s not dead.”

  If the coffee hadn’t sobered Darren, Brophy’s words had. Immediately, Darren straightened himself up in his chair. His face showed the first signs of comprehension. “What in the hell are you saying? I was told she died at the scene in the trunk of his goddamn car!”

  “It’s the official report that the body couldn’t be positively identified. They are working to get some DNA from the body. Nothing has come back.”

  A silence ensued. Darren shook his head in disbelief. Then he said, in a low, tentative voice, “You’re not making this up, Broph. I can’t take…”

  “I’m being honest with you, Darren. I need your help. You’re not the only one off the case. It’s not my jurisdiction. The FBI has taken over the case. I believe they suspect that Cameron is alive but they released that she died to let Mobley believe he’s succeeded.”

  “What exactly do you mean? Why do you think she’s alive?”

  “I’ve been meeting with a Dr. Schafer, a retired psychiatrist…Mobley’s former doctor. I’ve been studying Mobley through Schafer’s files. I think I’m getting a better handle on the man. It’s a long story, but I need your help. I have a lot of ground to cover if there is a chance we can find her.”

  “Is this one of your hunches? I don’t want to be doing some fucking busy work just so you think you can get me out of this funk.”

  “Darren, I’m dead serious,” Brophy said. “This damn sonofabitch has what Dr. Schafer describes as a fragmented personality, but if you study his behavior, he seems to have one objective. He wants to have a family. That’s what he’s doing—creating his fantasy family, and Cameron is the mother in his eyes.

  “I didn’t come to you until I was certain. I can’t guarantee anything, but I know it’s Mobley’s intention to create this family. Schafer and I believe he intends to do it somewhere close.”

  “And you want me to help. How?”

  Brophy pulled out a picture of Mobley’s painting. “I believe that he has her in a house similar to this picture. I have pinpointed a radius of two hundred to two hundred and fifty miles. Somewhere close enough for Mobley to safely create his home for his family. Schafer feels it would look similar to his old home. Now all we have to do is find it.”

  * * * *

  “Goddamnit, Cam. Stop the goddam screaming. No one’s around to hear you,” he said forcibly. “You’re wasting your breath.” His hand reached up to the side of his face. He pulled it back and looked aghast. “Shit, Cam. You drew blood.”r />
  Cameron wasn’t listening. Well beyond panic, she flung herself at him and gripped his shoulder. She didn’t dare look back at Greg. “Karl, please. Let me go. Before it’s too late. Please help me. I want to go home.”

  “You’re crazier than Greg if you think that’s going to happen.” He slung her back again on her cot and turned to Greg. “What the hell happened?”

  Greg stood and glared at Cameron, sending a shiver down her spine. Oh, I’m going to pay for the escape attempt.

  He said without inflection, “I was explaining her situation. She wasn’t pleased.”

  “I’m sure she wasn’t. I’m not happy with that at all, Greg,” Karl said, looking totally disgusted. “What have you done to her? She looks like a sheepdog.”

  “I told you, Karl,” Greg stated. “She had to be disciplined.”

  “Yeah,” Karl countered. “But you could have cleaned her up by now.”

  She stared intensely at her former friends…people she had known since she was a child. She didn’t move, at a loss for words. A silent tear escaped down her cheek.

  Karl looked back over at her. “It’s not my fault, Cam. It’s not. You don’t know Greg. You never did.”

  A sudden anger swelled in Cameron. She cried, “Why don’t you tell me? How can you explain any of this, Karl? How can you make sense of any of this?”

  He grimaced. “The ever innocent, naïve Cameron. Out to save the world against the injustices.” He shook his head. “Blind. So blind. Always seeing good in people. Accepting any explanation for a situation. You haven’t figured it out?”

  “Figured what out, Karl? Tell me what I so foolishly couldn’t see.”

  “From the beginning,” Karl said, glancing over at Greg and then back at Cameron. “You have a right to know and understand. You aren’t going anywhere. Once you come to understand fully, then you will accept what Greg is offering.”

  Cameron’s chest heaved heavily. She caught her breath. This was a never-ending nightmare.